Tuesday, March 6, 2012

"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results." Albert Einstein

I think I must be going insane. I have been trying to work with teachers for years now on transforming their teaching. I have offered numerous trainings after school, before school, in the summer, whenever I could. Still, there were many who never attended any of these classes. Why?

After talking to many teachers, it turns out that there are many reasons why they don't come. For some, they have too many other things happening at those times, family obligations, committee meetings, parent conferences, lesson planning, etc...

So I've come to the realization that I will need to change my model if I'm going to have any success. Here is my new plan. I am thinking of moving to a coaching model.

Our teachers meet in PLC's every week. I would meet with each team 4 times a year. Once at the beginning of the year to set goals. How will you meet the requirements of the district tech curriculum? As we meet throughout the year, we will revisit the goals and I will support the team in a variety of ways:

1. Learning to use the necessary tools2. Learning to manage the tools in a classroom setting3. Assessing student work4. Integrating the tech curriculum into the other curricular areas

I am excited by this model. It will allow me to consistently meet with all teachers. It will ensure that all teachers work towards a team goal and that it gets revisited often so it doesn't get forgotten.

I am curious to hear from others whether this is a model that they think would work well.